


The Confession

by orphan_account



Category: One Piece
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-05
Updated: 2015-12-05
Packaged: 2018-05-05 01:24:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5355737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zoro is woken up by a strange feeling in his gut. Following his instincts, Zoro finds himself confronting Luffy on the Thousand Sunny's head, finally asking the questions that have been burning in his mind ever since they had regrouped after two years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Confession

**Author's Note:**

> I'm starting a campaign to answer the questions that have been burning in my mind as I drown in One Piece. I hope you enjoy my first work! (Sparked by a desire to avoid studying for finals)

      Zoro watched in silence as his captain slinked out of the boys’ room. This was one of the habits Luffy had, generally he was going to the kitchen for a raid. This was something he would only attempt sleepwalking, however, since all the food was very well protected.  
      What Zoro couldn’t understand was how he had managed to wake up to the sound of his captain’s departure. He slept through everything.  
      There was a twinge in his stomach, almost like feeling sick, but not quite. It just felt uncomfortable. His instincts told him something was wrong, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He searched the ship and the surrounding waters for suspicious activity, but everything was peaceful. The only movement was Robin in the crow’s nest, keeping watch and reading a book.  
      _So what is it?_  
      Zoro decided his only option was to walk around until he could figure out what was wrong. Had he perhaps woken from a nightmare he couldn’t recall? That didn’t happen often, but surely that was an option…  
      _No, the feeling would have left by now._  
      Zoro found himself walking down into the hold, near Chopper’s medical room. Just as he turned a corner to go back up the stairs he slipped, nearly falling on his face.  
      Looking down, he saw small puddles of water trailing through the hall and up the stairs to the main deck.  
      Zoro’s gut twinged again, and he followed the trail with a sense of urgency.  
  _What am I so worked up for?_  
      Once onto the main deck Zoro lost the water trail in the grass, leaving him to aimlessly wander again. He walked into the kitchen to send Luffy back to the barracks, but the captain was nowhere to be seen.  
      _Must’ve gone back already…_  
      Though he thought this, Zoro felt that the statement wasn’t true, and this left him feeling even more unsettled. They had only now started to form normal routines on the ship since returning after two years. All of the events leading up until that evening had been full of activity, with no time to talk.  
      Zoro knew he had no reason to feel too anxious about Trafalgar Law anymore just because Luffy trusted him so much. It used to irritate Zoro to no end that Luffy was so trusting, but Zoro also knew that Luffy could read people’s hearts far better than anyone else.  
More than that, though, Zoro would back any decision Luffy made without hesitation. Luffy was his captain after all, and Zoro had a fierce loyalty to that ridiculous man.  
      Kin’emon and Momonosuke weren’t a problem worth worrying about, either.  
      Zoro stopped in his tracks, seeing a piece of moonlight being reflected off of the upper deck.  
      _Is that more water?_  
      It hadn’t rained for days, and the waves couldn’t reach that high on the ship, so the only answer was that someone or something on the ship had spilled more water there.  
      Walking up the steps hesitantly, Zoro kept his ears sharp and his one good eye watchful. He couldn’t sense anything close by.  
      Then it hit him, he couldn’t sense Luffy anywhere on the ship. It was like his aura had completely disappeared.  
      As panic set in, Zoro searched the ocean, but felt no trace of his captain.  
      _Where could he be?_  
      Zoro stopped at the steps leading up to the lion figurehead, the water in much smaller puddles. He made his way up the steps as silently as he could, hiding behind one of the large pieces of the lion’s mane as he stepped onto the top.  
      Peering around, Zoro was shocked to see Luffy laying on the head of the lion as he usually did. It was such a normal scene that Zoro wondered why he had even worried.  
      _But his presence is still hidden. Why is he hiding it?_  
      Luffy had somehow subdued his presence so as not to attract attention to himself, but why? Wasn’t sitting on the figurehead something Luffy normally did?  
      Zoro peered closer, trying to see Luffy’s face in the moonlight, but his hat was blocking his face.  
      Any other day, Zoro would have left Luffy alone, it would’ve been natural to do so. Now, though, there seemed to be a small disconnect between himself and his captain. Zoro hadn’t noticed it before, but now he felt the difference.  
      He could usually figure out what Luffy was thinking about and feeling because they had spent so much time together, but after so long apart Zoro felt a distance between the crewmembers. Not necessarily in a physical sense, but their relationships. They had all devoted themselves to Luffy and had all trained toward a similar goal. That had brought them closer than ever.  
      The distance was in shared memories and shared understanding. Everyone had been changed by their experiences, and only time would pull everyone together again.  
      Of all the crewmembers, though, Zoro wasn’t sure if Luffy would be able to overcome his past as easily, and that’s what drove him to take a step forward and call out his captain’s name.  
      “Luffy?”  
      Luffy tilted his head back, his eyes bright in the moonlight. He acted as if he hadn’t known Zoro had been there, which Zoro let go.  
      “I hope you didn’t try raiding the kitchen. Franky built a new trap for Sanji,” Luffy pouted.  
      “I’m not that stupid,” Zoro snorted, eyeing Luffy carefully and taking a step forward.  
      “I’m always so hungry, though. Sanji should leave some food out for me,” Luffy complained, turning away from Zoro and staring toward the sea again.  
      “You’d just eat it and still complain afterward, so what’s the point?” Zoro asked, noticing that the water was coming from Luffy’s hair, which was still dripping.  
      “Is that why you’re hair is wet?” Zoro asked.  
      “Huh? Oh, yeah,” Luffy replied, not looking back.  
      _He’s lying._  
      “Luffy,” Zoro forced himself to speak his mind. He needed to recover the distance that had been formed. He felt as if a portion of it was his fault. After Thriller Bark he had avoided Luffy, not because he disliked Luffy, but because he was so overwhelmed by the pain he was still feeling from his encounter with Kuma.  
Not only had the shock of taking in Luffy’s pain affected his body far beyond anything it had ever dealt with before, but Zoro had also been emotionally shocked by the amount of pain and injury his captain sustained in battle without complaint.  
      He hadn’t wanted Luffy to see him suffering, so Zoro had wandered off on his own, getting lost hadn’t been part of the plan, but Zoro didn’t care too much about that part.  
      Maybe that’s why he was speaking up now. Because he had felt Luffy’s pain once, and after seeing that huge scar on his captain’s chest he felt that pain all over again.                     Imagining the physical pain of the Great War gave Zoro chills, not to mention the spiritual and emotional pain Luffy must have endured as well.  
      “What is it, Zoro?” Luffy asked, his bright eyes and quirky smile waiting patiently for him to continue, “do your thoughts get lost like you?”  
      Zoro frowned, “Luffy, are you okay?”  
      Luffy’s face flickered for a moment, recovering quickly from the question.  
      “What kind of a question is that? Of course I’m alright!” He smiled his broad, goofy smile, laughing lightly.  
      _He’s lying._  
      The fact that Zoro knew he was lying left him feeling sick to the stomach. Had all that smiling and all that laughter been a mask? What was his captain shouldering on his back?  
      Zoro sighed, walking forward and sitting down next to Luffy on the Sunny’s head.  
      “I guess Thousand Sunny is able to have more people on my special seat,” Luffy laughed.  
      “Even if there hadn’t been room, I wouldn’t have left,” Zoro murmured, glancing at Luffy with his good eye.  
      “You can’t just steal the captain’s seat, you know,” Luffy snorted, “it’s my special seat. You aren’t allowed to have it.”  
      As stupid as his captain could be, Luffy was also very thoughtful and careful on occasion, this occasion being one of them. He refused to reveal his true colors, and as much as Zoro looked up to Luffy for his solid and constant behavior and happiness, he couldn’t help but feel like Luffy was carrying too much. Thriller Bark had taught him at least that much.  
      “You were concealing your presence until just now,” Zoro muttered, turning to Luffy seriously, “why were you doing that?”  
      “Was I? Guess I wasn’t thinking about it,” Luffy chuckled nervously, his eyes averting from Zoro as he said this.  
      “Luffy,” Zoro growled, “stop lying to me.”  
      Luffy stopped smiling and looked over at Zoro, but did not reply.  
      “Don’t think that I haven’t paid any attention to you, Luffy. The way you wash your hands constantly, even if they aren’t dirty. You never washed your hands that much before. You sometimes touch your scar for no apparent reason and grimace, too. You think no one is watching you? Even if everyone else on the crew hasn’t noticed a thing, I have.”  
      “Zoro, you’re probably seeing funny because you’ve only got one eye,” Luffy returned, adjusting his hat so it covered his face.  
      “I am not ‘seeing funny’, Luffy,” Zoro grumbled, “just answer my question.”  
      “I did,” Luffy shrugged absently.  
      “That was a lie, Luffy, you and I both know it! Why are you so insistent on lying?”  
      “I must’ve looked like I was lying because your question was so stupid, Zoro. How could I not be fine now that I’m back home, with all of you, going on adventures again?”  
      Zoro frowned, glaring at Luffy’s concealed face.  
      “Jeez, what an idiot. You think that you should just do it by yourself, huh? What’s the point in having us if you don’t even look to us for help every once in awhile?” Zoro asked, taking Luffy’s hat off his head.  
      “Of course I need you guys, I wouldn’t have been able to make it this far without you,” Luffy replied simply, “I need Nami to navigate, Robin to be our archaeologist, Franky to repair the ship, Chopper to be our doctor, Brook to play music, Usopp to be our sniper, Sanji to be our sea cook, and you to be my swordsman. I can’t do those things, so of course I need you! I’ve never thought I could do it by myself-”  
      “Then what would you call what you’re doing right now?” Zoro asked, holding Luffy’s hat out of the captain’s reach.  
      “I’m just sitting on my special seat, Zoro, what is your problem?” Luffy burst as he tried to scramble over Zoro to get to his hat.  
      “This isn’t a game, Luffy!” Zoro yelled, “everyone on this ship trusts you with their life. You’ve saved us all on countless occasions. I trust you with every fiber of my being and will follow you to the pits of hell and back if you asked me to. We all trained for two years just like you requested. Aren’t we deserving of your trust, Luffy?” Zoro paused, looking away from Luffy, “don’t you trust me?” He asked quietly.  
      These kind of things weren’t down Zoro’s ally at all, his words seemed to spill out of his mouth as if he had lost control of himself. It was as if all the things he had been thinking about over the course of two years sat at the tip of his tongue, just barely held back by his self control.  
      “Of course I trust you,” Luffy sighed, his tone of voice changing slightly, “I just don’t think it’s a problem.”  
      “What-”  
      “It’s not a problem I think you need to deal with. It’s personal, alright? Besides, it’s better to leave those things in the past.”  
      “You won’t even tell me what ‘those things’ are, even though it’s easy enough to guess,” Zoro argued, “you’re out here, all by yourself, obviously not 'leaving those things in the past', your head is soaking for some reason, and all my instincts are telling me that there’s a problem,” Zoro glared, his irritation at his stubborn captain beginning to bubble.  
      “Well you aren’t wrong,” Luffy muttered, stretching his arm and snatching his hat out of Zoro’s hand and stuffing it back on his head, “but it’s none of your business.”  
      Luffy seemed almost in a rush to brush Zoro off, and this infuriated Zoro so much he finally burst.  
      “I’ve had it!” He yelled, standing up stiffly and glaring at his captain angrily.  
      “Zoro?” Luffy looked up, concern on his face at the sudden change in emotion.  
      “You’re ridiculous! It’s none of my business? You must be more of an idiot than you pretend to be. I didn’t train all this time just so you could push me away and treat my companionship as if it was nothing. What was the point, Luffy? Why did I nearly kill myself training just so you could still shoulder all of the burdens of this crew?”  
      “Because I’m the captain, Zoro!” Luffy interrupted, standing up and cocking his head at Zoro defensively.  
      “You’re the one who truly ingrained that idea in my head, back at Water 7. This is no game, and neither is what happened after Water 7.”  
      Zoro gritted his teeth, it was true, he had reprimanded Luffy for not honoring his title of captain.  
      “I’m not saying that you shouldn’t uphold your honor and your title as captain, Luffy,” Zoro grimaced, looking away from Luffy as he tried to think of a way to get through to the captain.  
      “Zoro, I think you worry too much,” Luffy said, trying to pull the conversation away from the topic, “it’s very unlike you.”  
      “No, Luffy. I’m not worrying too much. I’m done swallowing all this bull you feed everyone else so easily. Can’t you just accept that I already know and just talk to me? If not to me, who can you go to when you need it?” Zoro yelled, clenching his fists, “if you are the captain I follow, you should know better than anyone that it’s not weakness to feel sorrow! You taught us all that!”  
      “Which is why I must stay consistent, Zoro,” Luffy frowned, sitting down again and looking away from Zoro.  
      “I can’t help others if they are worried about me, don’t you understand? If anyone on this ship felt like they couldn’t rely completely on me, then I wouldn’t be fulfilling my duties.”  
      Luffy’s string of blunt and serious responses let Zoro know that Luffy was in no mood to add his usual gag reel.  
      “Luffy,” Zoro paused, not sure what to say and feeling that it would be easier at this point if he said nothing at all.  
      Zoro sat down next to Luffy and sighed.  
      “Zoro, I told you-”  
      “Look, I’m not stupid. I can hear. You said no, and I’ll live with that if that’s what you want. Just remember this: if you feel a strong desire to be the kind of captain your crew needs, at least allow me to be the first mate my captain needs. If you want me to go away, then I will.”  
      Luffy took a deep breath and lay back from where he sat, staring up at the clear night sky.  
      The silence went on for so long that Zoro nearly fell asleep, only to be brought back to full consciousness at Luffy’s voice.  
      “How many times have you been close to death?”  
      Zoro glanced down at the captain, whose eyes were closed and his arms propped behind his head. It seemed odd to see his face so serious and calm for so long.  
      “Probably more than a few times,” Zoro admitted, watching his captain carefully.  
      “You didn’t want to die when you got there though, did you?” Luffy asked, eyes still closed.  
      “Of course not,” Zoro replied, “death would get in the way of my goal, after all.”  
      “To be the best swordsman, so good that your name will reach heaven,” Luffy murmured.  
      Zoro nodded, struggling to see where Luffy was going with this.  
      “I have felt the same. I don’t want to die, and dying would get in the way of my dream. I know that if I do die, I’ll die trying and that is good enough, right? I could die happy, right?”  
      Zoro nodded again, deciding against a verbal response.  
      “That’s what I’ve always believed, but there was a time when I didn’t believe in that. Far from it.”  
      “What do you mean?” Zoro murmured, feeling anxious.  
      “I wanted to die, Zoro,” Luffy whispered, his face nearly expressionless except for the slight frown on his face.  
      The expression was so uncomfortable to look at on Luffy’s so commonly happy face that Zoro looked away. He couldn’t look away from what he had just heard, though, and was forced to face his captain again.  
      Luffy was now sitting up, clutching his legs in a very vulnerable position, his chin on his knees.  
      “Luffy, I-”  
      Luffy glared at Zoro, “you asked for this, didn’t you?”  
      Zoro was taken aback by the frustration in Luffy’s eyes, but he nodded. This had been what he had asked for, but now he wasn’t sure if he was ready to hear it.  
    _I have to be, I may never get another chance._  
      Zoro took a breath and locked eyes with Luffy, letting him know that he was not about to abandon him after he had begun to take his mask off.  
      “I saved him, you know,” Luffy murmured, “Ace, I mean.”  
      Zoro stared, he hadn’t ever learned the details of the war from Mihawk, not that he had asked.  
      “After everything I had gone through, my body had stopped moving, but Ace was still on the execution stand,” Luffy’s right hand moved to his chest unconsciously as he began the torturous journey through his memories.  
      “I couldn’t stand lying there and watching Ace die, so I had Iva-chan inject me with their power so that I could move again. I was far afield from the idea ‘if I die saving Ace then I’ll be alright’, I was at the point of, ‘if I don’t fight, I will want to die.’ If I couldn’t save Ace, I was sure I couldn’t live on. He was my only brother, after all.”  
      Luffy stopped speaking for a long period of time before continuing.  
      _It must hurt him to have to tell me this._  
      “When I finally got to him and unlocked his chains I was sure that everything would be alright again. Nothing else mattered as long as Ace was alright,” Luffy shook his head slightly, “and we almost made it, too. We were so close.”  
      Zoro blinked, the death of Luffy’s brother becoming even worse in his mind as Luffy recalled it, only because it seemed to hurt his captain so much to tell it in words, as if the retelling cemented the fact that the war had actually happened in his mind.  
      Luffy’s eyes were closed tight and he clenched his fists as he continued, “he died protecting me. Akainu put his arm through Ace’s chest while he was using his body as a shield to protect me,” Luffy paused before whispering quietly to himself, “there was so much blood.”  
      “He collapsed into my arms, and even as I tried to hold him up my hands slid into the gaping hole in his back, I-”  
      Luffy cut himself off and did not speak for a very long time, his whole body shaking and his hands rubbing on his pants as if he were trying desperately to wipe something off on them. Zoro thought that he would see sadness on Luffy’s face, but instead Luffy appeared filled with rage, a type of rage Zoro had never seen in Luffy before.  
      _No… not rage. Hate._  
      After what felt like an eternity of silence, he turned to Zoro, his eyes now filled with a mixture of fear and anger. He pointed at the deep crater in his chest, “this is a daily reminder of my failures. Of my weakness. I wasn’t even conscious when I received this scar. All I remember is waking up in Law’s ship and nearly destroying it in my search for Ace. I was certain it had all been a nightmare, but the pain in my body told me otherwise.”  
      Luffy let his hands drop to his sides to prop him up as he leaned back, “I was so desperate to convince myself it was a lie that I began to hurt myself. I cracked my skull on every rock and mountain I could find. I ripped my cheeks apart trying to wake up from the nightmare. When I ran out of energy I could do nothing but punch the ground and cry. My hands had the stains of my brother’s blood on them, and the blood wouldn’t go away no matter what I did. It was in those moments that I realized two things. The first thing was that I was too weak to become the pirate king, the second was that I surely wanted to die if it meant getting rid of the nightmare.”  
      Luffy took a shuddering breath, “I almost did it, too, but then Jimbei came in and stopped me, reminding me of the other people that were relying on me.”  
      Zoro felt Luffy’s eyes lock on him, “you all saved me from death and wanting to die. I wanted to be with you all so bad right then. I wanted to be surrounded by the comfort of my friends.”  
      “But Rayleigh changed your mind,” Zoro murmured.  
      “Yes, he reminded me that I had one more obstacle to overcome. My weakness.”  
      “Right…” Zoro looked down, maybe if he had been just a little bit stronger they wouldn’t have been separated. They would have been able to help Luffy.  
      _But would we have made a difference? We were more likely to become a hinderance to Luffy._  
      “This scar is my vow to protect everyone. I trained to be able to do it, so I will no matter what,” Luffy continued, “but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt sometimes.”  
      “Your scar still hurts?” Zoro asked, although the question was stupid, his scar hurt on occasion as well, that was the nature of scars.  
      “It’s more haunting than anything,” Luffy murmured, “nightmares are always tied to the occasional pain. I dunk my head in the seawater in the docking system so that my body and brain dull in feeling, it helps. There are some nights were I nearly drown because I hold it underwater so long.”  
      Zoro felt anger at himself build in his gut as the truth came out. Why hadn’t he been more observant? Why couldn’t he have been there for his captain?  
      Even with this anger, though, Zoro couldn’t help but respect Luffy. It must be very hard to act happy all the time, even when he was hurting inside. Marineford and two years of training with Rayleigh had changed Luffy in some ways, for better or for worse, but he still remained that happy-go-lucky captain that the crew had grown to love.  
      “Do you still feel that way sometimes?” Zoro found himself asking, “feeling regret, at least.”  
      “Sure, but it doesn’t get in the way. I think it’s been a long enough time that I’ve overcome a lot of the sadness and regret, but even time cannot dispel everything so easily. I’m not very smart, and I’ve got a one track mind, it’s very hard for those things to go away.”  
      Luffy tilted his hat across his face and lay back down, not speaking.  
      The solemn conversation between them had been strange at first, mostly because of Luffy’s serious tone throughout, never moving away from his story once. It was a face of Luffy Zoro didn’t see often, and in retrospect he was surprised that Luffy had actually decided to open up to him, considering how stubborn the captain had been about it before.  
      “Listen, Luffy, no matter what I have followed you and your stupidity up until this point. I have dealt with your antics. I have dealt with your arguments. I have dealt with you stealing my food on more than one occasion, and I still follow you. Just because you’ve told me this doesn’t mean I think less of you, in fact, I respect you even more. You’re the only one I would follow, Luffy, and I’d follow you to the grave if you so required it of me.”  
      Zoro took a breath, feeling his breath shake slightly. He felt a horrible anguish over his failure to be a better first mate to his captain, but he swallowed the sensation and continued on.  
      “Luffy, I trained every day so that you would never be alone again. I became strong so that I would never be too weak to fight at your side.”  
      “Are you stupid?” Luffy asked, “what about your dream? Your dream should come before me.”  
      Zoro grinned to himself, “well, it’s certainly on my list of priorities,” Zoro looked at his captain for a moment before continuing, “I’m sorry, Luffy.”  
      Luffy’s hand reached up to his hat and lifted it off his head, “for what?”  
      “For not being strong enough to help you when you actually needed it,” Zoro murmured, the words from two years ago finally stumbling from his mouth.  
      “That doesn’t matter to me, Zoro,” Luffy smiled slightly, “you and the rest of the crew are here now, and you all dealt with being separated at my request. You all came back and you all became so much stronger. It’s all been for the best to have it turn out this way.”  
      “That’s not what I mean, not really,” Zoro stammered, “what I mean is,” Zoro turned until his whole body faced Luffy, “it must’ve been so hard to be alone when you lost your brother, if only I could’ve been there, maybe you wouldn’t have-”  
      “Zoro,” Luffy laughed, “you sound like Chopper.”  
      Zoro glowered, looking down.  
      “That’s more like the normal Zoro,” Luffy smiled, placing his hat on Zoro’s head, but not moving back to his spot next to Zoro.  
      Luffy remained on his knees, leaning next to Zoro’s shoulders. Upon releasing the hat, Luffy gripped the swordsman’s jacket tightly.  
      “I miss him,” Luffy whispered, his shoulders shaking, “I miss him so much. He promised me that he wouldn’t die. He promised.”  
    _He’s crying…!_  
      “People die in wars,” Luffy murmured, tears running down his face like a broken faucet, “that’s what I told Vivi… but I had no idea how much it hurt.”  
      “Luffy,” Zoro started, instinctively pulling his captain closer to his body for reasons he couldn’t explain, Luffy had been the one for those types of things.  
      “No matter what-”  
      “Don’t tell me you won’t die!” Luffy interrupted loudly.  
      “I wasn’t going to say that,” Zoro muttered, the embrace he was giving Luffy felt awkward at first, because Zoro wasn’t accustomed to hugging, but he gradually grew used to it as he let Luffy cry into his shoulder.  
      “I was going to say, that no matter what we will all be at your side, and no matter what I’ll be here for you. Please let me do my job and help you, Luffy.”  
      “Okay,” Luffy murmured as he wiped his tears away, the happy grin Zoro could recognize from a mile away beginning to return to his face.  
      “You’re not alone anymore,” Zoro promised, the sick feeling in his gut disappearing as his captain relaxed completely in his embrace.  
      “Wow, Zoro, you’re a lot nicer than I remember,” Luffy joked.  
      “I’ll dunk you in the ocean if you tell anyone,” Zoro grumbled, imagining what the dart-brow cook would say if he found out that Zoro had willingly hugged someone.  
      “I won’t tell if you don’t,” Luffy whispered.  
      “I wasn’t planning on it,” Zoro replied quietly.

      Before he could do much about it, Luffy had fallen asleep right on Zoro’s shoulder.  
      _Jeez, what a pain._  
      Zoro didn’t dare move him, however, for fear of waking the captain up from his peaceful sleep, probably the most peaceful he had had all night.  
      It left Zoro in a precarious position on the Sunny's figurehead, but he didn't mind. It didn’t bother him anymore to see his captain in such a vulnerable position, in fact, Zoro felt better with Luffy in his arms rather than just at his side. He felt he had more power to protect Luffy this way. With that in mind, Zoro felt the strange need to never let go. Not only because of his desire to help Luffy, but also because somehow, his captain’s calm breathing and warm body made him feel calm and content too.


End file.
